The third generation partnership project (3GPP) is currently considering a long term evolution (LTE) of the 3GPP to provide a new radio access network for a high-data-rate, low-latency, packet-optimized, improved system with high capacity and better coverage. The LTE is an evolution of the radio interface, (i.e., evolved universal terrestrial radio access (UTRA)), and the radio network architecture, (i.e., evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (UTRAN)). Currently, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) and single carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) are proposed as air interface technologies to be used in the downlink and uplink transmissions respectively.
Meanwhile, 3GPP high speed packet access evolution (HSPA+) is also being proposed to improve the 3GPP radio access network capacity and coverage. In HSPA+, an evolution of the radio interface and the radio network architecture is being considered. In HSPA+, the air interface technology will still be based on code division multiple access (CDMA), but with a more efficient physical layer architecture including independent channelization codes, (distinguished with respect to channel quality), and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO).
H-ARQ has been adopted by several wireless communication standards including 3GPP and 3GPP2. Besides the radio link control (RLC) layer's automatic repeat request (ARQ) function, H-ARQ provides improved throughput and performance with respect to link adaptation errors and rate control. Asynchronous H-ARQ is used in high speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) and synchronous H-ARQ is used in high speed uplink packet access (HSUPA).
The conventional H-ARQ scheme is a single H-ARQ scheme in which a transmitter transmits only one transport block (TB) per TTI via one H-ARQ process. With the introduction of physical resource dependent link adaptation mechanism in LTE or HSPA+, the conventional H-ARQ signaling mechanism, (i.e., signaling mechanism for single H-ARQ), is not sufficient for transmitting multiple TBs per TTI via multiple H-ARQ processes.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a method and system for supporting multiple H-ARQ processes for transmitting multiple TBs simultaneously per TTI.